Skip to main content

Day: 10 June 2014

News: Dekmantel Festival launches “Sole Selectors” video series

In the lead up to this year’s Dekmantel Festival, the Dekmantel team have joined forces with Warsteiner  to bring a video series of exclusive looks at the lives of DJs on the bill. The series will chronicle the stories of real people, real deejays, and their absolute passion for music.

First up is Antal, local Amsterdam resident and honcho of the respected Rush Hour label. Forthcoming in the series are DJ Harvey, Gerd Janson and Prins Thomas.

Watch Antal’s ‘Sole Selectors’ now:

www.dekmantelfestival.com/#soleselectors

Dekmantel Festival takes place on August 1st – 3rd in the Amsterdam Bos, read our preview here.

Live: Swans

22nd May

Academy 2

8/10

The first word that springs to mind trying to describe Swans is ‘cult’. It works for their music, heavy with ritualistic and apocalyptic imagery, and it certainly works for their following. Most people don’t like Swans: they either strongly dislike them or they adore them, filled with awe at the length of both their career and albums and most of all at their frontman Michael Gira, regarded as visionary genius and unstoppable force. This is admittedly a little silly: “Why would you want to see Swans?” my housemate, of the former camp, asked me. “They’re just a bunch of old men.” The band themselves are well aware of that fact, looking somewhat sheepish and very much their age in front of this vast, rapt crowd. They wisely avoid any rock-legend posturing or visual frills, giving the music the emphasis it deserves, and it is the music, after all, that earns them their reputation.

They played the longest set that I’ve seen in years, clocking in at well over two hours, with nearly another from support Jenny Hval – unfortunately we were waiting to collect tickets for most of her set, but the enchanting, otherworldly Norwegian vocalist is a subdued but fitting counterpart to Swans’ music. A long set was the least one could expect from a band whose tracks usually clock in close to ten minutes at least, but a pleasure nonetheless.

It was also a very loud set – Hval closed by warning us to put in our earplugs, and the tinnitus I am dealing with as I write this makes me wish I had thought to bring them. The dynamic range that makes their most recent album To Be Kind such a masterful exercise in crescendos was absent here: either one or two of the band would play loudly, or all six would play loudly. This wasn’t necessarily a shortcoming: the sheer intensity of the sound made it impossible to do so much as think of anything else for the whole performance, and it transformed some of the album tracks into totally different beasts, which is part of the excitement of seeing live music. ‘A Little God in My Hands’ in particular benefitted from the transformation. What is on the album a relatively straightforward (at least by the standards of Swans) blues-rock track became a hypnotic swamp of sound, churning chaotic noise kept anchored by the thudding regularity and sheer volume of the bass line.

It is remarkable how well the six work as a unit: the simplicity and restraint provided by the rhythm section is just as vital as Gira’s unique, menacing voice or the relentless energy of multi-instrumentalist Thor Harris (who looks exactly how you would want a man named Thor in a band like Swans to look), clanging tubular bells and using trombone and clarinet to produce howling drones. There’s a cohesion and precision to the whole thing that belongs more to the tradition of the classical and symphonic than the punk rock and no wave scenes from which Swans first emerged, yet nothing feels stale or rehearsed.

Seeing Swans live, their reputation starts to make sense. There is something genuinely awe-inspiring about their ability to completely transform a space through sound. Closing, Michael Gira howls “I am a black hole,” over and over, and it feels so appropriate: everything in the room feels consumed by the weight, the volume, the omnipresence and the power of the sound, and you don’t come out the other end quite the same as you went in.

Album: The Black Keys – Turn Blue

Released May 12th

Nonesuch Records

6/10

The Black Keys are back with their eighth studio release Turn Blue. Announced via Mike Tyson’s Twitter it seems they’ve evolved… although it lacks punch. At the very least they’ve borrowed some keyboards in an effort to expand the sonic horizons of a two piece blues band. The results? It’s alright…

Turn Blue slithers rather than explodes into life with ‘Weight of Love’, a song my journalistic cliché book says would be perfect in a Tarantino film.  ‘In Time’ follows, a song dangerously similar in vocal melody to ‘Dead and Gone’ from previous release El Camino and a song which made me want to listen to the previous release more than this opening salvo.

After a slow burning introductory duo, eponymous track ‘Turn Blue’ is the first strong song. Patrick Carney’s uncharacteristically sparse drumming compliment gospel vocal production that make for an interesting listen. Unfortunately this is followed by ‘Fever’. A prime example of a band expanding their sound but overusing keys in an attempt to widen their horizons. The song features a bassline that reminds us why they were great without bass and a prog breakdown Brian Eno would write if he were asleep at the desk.

‘Year in Review’ smacks of El Camino, but is better for it. ‘Bullet in the Brain’ opens like a Tame Impala collaboration or a spaghetti western theme before we swiftly revert back to the Black Keys we know on ‘It’s Up to You Now’. This track can be described as jungle books drums and overused fuzz pedal. “I’m waiting on words” Auerbach wails on the aptly named ‘Waiting on Words’ which is a drab number followed up by inoffensive ’10 Lovers’ and ‘In Our Prime’.

The album closer is ‘Gotta Get Away’ the albums strongest tune. Reminiscent of T.Rex, it’s the kind of closer that makes you want to press repeat on the album… if only there were something worth repeating for.

Generally the album is an attempt at evolution, and the Black Keys deserve credit. The shortcoming of the album is in the strongest tracks are songs artists like Jack White knock out for fun. Also, and I’m sure this will divide the room, Auerbach’s wailed vocals wear thin south of track three. A fair whack at evolution from America’s favourite beat combo…